State of Grace
by ibshafer
Summary: Post season 1 fall out; during that state of grace between revelation and action; Kyle, Liz, Isabel, Michael, Maria and, of course, Max...
1. Chapter 1: Witness

Witness

**State of Grace: Witness**

by Irene Shafer

**Title:** State of Grace

**Chapter:** Witness  
**Author:** ibshafer

**Genre: **Roswell

**Pairing:** Kyle, Liz (but not Kyle/Liz…)

**Rating: **PG (for mild profanity)

**Disclaimer:** the usual; I bow down to the "great" and powerful Katim's and company, by whose good graces I mangle these characters...  
**Summary:** Post-season 1 fallout; Liz tries to help Kyle process everything, particularly his almost-dying and being saved by Max…

"Make me a witness  
take me out  
out of darkness  
out of doubt

I won't weigh you down  
with good intention  
won't make fire out of clay  
or other inventions

will we burn in heaven  
like we do down here  
will the change come  
while we're waiting

everyone is waiting..."

-- Witness, _Surfacing_, Sarah McLachlan

She hadn't planned it, this day of all days. To get out of bed. To shower and put clothes on. To leave the sanctuary of her room and go and face the world. But here she was. One foot after the other, moving almost without her bidding. Heading through town. Heading towards the one person who might _least _want to talk to her.

And yet here she was.

Knocking on the Valenti's door.

Maybe if I run really fast, I can be gone before the door opens...

The sheriff answered it quickly, though, his face haggard and shell-shocked, a look she was pretty sure he could see on hers, as well.

"Miss _Parker... _ Didn't expect to see _you_ today," he said softly, with a tired smile.

And she knew what was he was thinking. What the last thing he'd known _was_. How the world had been ordered when last he'd checked in on it.

'_Where's Max?' _His eyes seemed to say. Like he'd never expected to see them separated again.

Like _she _had...

She physically bit her cheek, hoping the sudden stab of pain would keep the tears from restarting. That it would keep her from giving in to it all over again.

That wasn't why she was here. Not directly, anyway.

"I'm not intruding, am I, Sheriff," she asked, hoping her voice didn't falter, but then glad that it had, seeing the way her tone stilled whatever heart-wrenching question the man had so clearly wanted to ask her. "How... how's Kyle feeling today? I was – I was hoping I could see him."

Valenti's smile was soft and suddenly warm. She knew he didn't completely understand what was going on here – the unasked questions, the unresponded answers – but a sensitive streak she'd only just learned he possessed, was clearly making him hold his tongue. For which she was grateful.

"Sure... I'm – I'm sure he'd be happy to see you, Liz," he said, stepping awkwardly aside, motioning her in.

It took her a moment to adjust to the sudden darkness of the Valenti living room – all the blinds were draw tight against the day's sun and the only break in the gloom was the glow of the television across which the manic movements of two of the American League's finest flew. Kyle sat slumped on the couch, hand glued to the remote, dressed in the same clothes he'd warn the day before.

At the museum.

The gaping hole in his worn grey t-shirt seemed to jump out at her, its ragged edges hauntingly familiar.

He made no notice of her and his father, unsure of how to handle it, opted to play host.

"Something to drink, Liz?" He asked and she nodded, grateful to have something else to focus on for a moment. She was also grateful that he'd dropped the formal 'Miss Parker' that seemed so much the reminder of tensions past. "Coke, OK?"

"... um, sure, Sheriff. Coke's fine..." She gave him a faint smile.

He had turned to leave, after a glance at his silent son, but then stopped, placing a worn hand on her arm, moving her a few steps away.

"Liz," he began quietly and with clear difficulty. "I... this has been weighin' on me for a while now and I... I just have to say it." He sought her eyes, seemed relieved to see them fixed on his. Continued. "All these months when I thought... When I was watching you all. I know how scared you all must have been... I'm just sorry I made ... what you had to do any harder than it had to be..."

For a moment, she couldn't speak, so utterly taken aback by the statement. By the admission. Over the past few days, Sheriff Valenti had proven, in both word and action, that he was a man to be trusted. And respected.

Now, more so than ever.

She felt a warmth and a feeling of gratitude deep in her chest, and once again, the tears threatened to flow. She bit her lip, managed to keep all but a stray back and then took a deep breath.

"What's important, Sheriff, is that you were there when they... when we needed you... Without _you_, Max would be dead..." She trailed off, thrown by her own words, not having intended the mention.

"Without _Max_, Kyle would be dead." Valenti's tone was matter-of-fact, but his hands were still shaking.

She took one in her own, hoping to steady it, and held his gaze for a moment.

Then, with a barely perceptible nod, he went off to the kitchen and the sodas.

And Liz turned back to the couch. And Kyle.

Who, it turned out, wasn't as unaware as she'd thought.

There was a dry cough and then a question.

"So, Liz... where's _Spaceboy?_"

"_Kyle_..."

"No, hey, I really want to know," Kyle said, finally turning to look at her. He seemed oblivious to the obvious pain on her face at the question.

Liz stood at the back of the couch, a hand toying with a cotton Indian blanket draped there. "It's ... it's complicated."

Kyle's laugh was quick and bitter. "That's a big _'duh'_, Liz..."

"Look, Kyle, I... I didn't come here to talk about..." She trailed off, couldn't even say it.

Now Kyle was grinning. Big. Wide. Forced. "You didn't come here to talk about the Man of the Hour? The Source of All Things Great and Groovy? The Bringer of Life and Maker of Mystic Silver Handprints?" Kyle raised his t-shirt up to his collar bone, revealing a neatly defined, solid silver print – dead center on his chest. "Lovely, isn't it? I saw yours last fall and I've been wanting one ever since..."

She stood staring at the handprint, for a moment almost surprised. Like she'd forgotten there would be a... a _that_. And that she'd had one, too. And that Kyle had seen it...

She forced herself to look away from that perfect silver print, images of her own experience filling her head.

There was also a sharp little pain that served as a reminder of how things had changed. How everything had changed. There was a saddened part of her that wanted to pull Kyle's shirt up and out of the way so she could put her own hand over the print there, to touch what Max had touched.

To touch _him_...

"Kyle, I came because I'm worried about you," she said slowly. "I really think we need to talk. I know what you're going through."

Kyle was all animation and energy now. It was scary.

"Hey, but of _course_ you do! You're one of the healed, too!" Kyle bowed low in mock religious zeal. "Halleluyah! We have been _saved_!"

"Stop it!" Liz said through clenched teeth. Dropping onto the couch next to him, she grabbed his hand and looked him dead in the eye. "I know what you're doing."

Kyle's expression grew suddenly deadly serious. "Tell me, Liz. What am I doing?"

"You think that if you make this whole thing a joke, you won't have to really think about what happened. How you almost died. How Max saved your life. How Max is... how Max is an _alien_."

"Ding! Ding! Ding! Give the little lady a prize!" he shouted, all grins again.

She shook her head, frustrated. "And just what do you get from that?"

". ..um, I get to continue in my delusion that the world is a normal place?" He winked at her. "How ya doin' with yours, by the way?"

She grit her teeth and willed herself not to respond.

Meanwhile, he was patting his pockets as though looking for something he'd misplaced. "I had another one around here somewhere. Now where is it?"

"Another one 'what'," she asked, carefully.

"Another _delusion_..." He grinned. "What was it again...? Oh, yeah. This is the best one: I get to _not _think about how the guy who stole my girl away from me is the same guy that saved my stupid life. And the same guy that put my dad in danger." He got up and moved to the window, pulling the blinds out of the way for a moment to stare out into the heat of the morning. "And I'd rather not have to think about how all this has been going on for _months_ now and no one bothered to tell me. Not Max, not you_, _not even my _Dad_." He spun to face her now, his expression stark and pained. "You couldn't _trust _me, Liz?"

"Oh, come _on_, Kyle. Of _course_, I couldn't. You, of _all_ people!"

His reaction was so extreme, Liz's could see, immediately, that she'd hurt him.

Too late to take it back.

Kyle stood there, looking stunned and silent and like a lost little boy and Liz felt the urge to backpedal, but chose instead the _truth_.

"They were _scared_, Kyle, of what people would think and do. Scared of what would happen if the wrong people found out." She choked as an image she'd lifted from Max's head floated into view – the smug, almost disinterested expression on Pierce's face as he'd spun the dial on that machine and fed so much current into Max's head, he'd felt his teeth begin to vibrate out of his mouth... Her face was wet as she continued. "Have you ever _been _that scared, Kyle? Scared for your life? Scared you were going to

_die_..."

Kyle slumped to the floor against the window, his expression blank. A hand absently played with the ragged hole in his t-shirt.

Once again, she'd blurted out the wrong thing.

_Having another good day, aren't you, Liz?_

His eyes seemed to be staring at nothing and his voice was a whisper when he finally spoke. "I forgot... Oh, _God_, I forgot..." He closed his eyes against some sort of pain. _"Ohgodohgodohgodohgod…"_

It took her a moment to realize he wasn't talking about his own near-death experience, but _Max's_: he'd seen 'it', too.

"When he... when he touched me –" Kyle broke off, wet his lips, continued. "...I got this...this _rush _of images. I saw _you _and how he...how he _feels _about you. I _felt _it," he glanced to Liz, met her eyes briefly, looked away. "...and then I saw this _place_... It was all white and cold...and I felt...I felt something sharp... _here_." He touched his chest, right about where that incision Liz had seen on Max's chest had been. "I...I _felt_ his fear. Shit, Liz, I felt his _terror_. " The tears were flowing freely down his face now. "I...I knew the feeling. I was...I was _already _feeling it..." Kyle's hand was at his chest again and he closed his eyes against the memory. "_Shitshitshit..."_

Liz was kneeling at his side, a hand on his arm. "Ssssh, Kyle. It's OK. It's _gonna _be OK. I _swear_."

Kyle shook his head. "_Is_ it? Is it OK, Liz? Can it ever be OK again?"

"...of _course_, it can," Liz said, quietly, but her tone was unconvincing. She turned to sit next to him with her back to the window. "Lookit, Kyle. I—I don't have it all figured out yet, I may _never _have it all figured out, but I can tell you the important stuff right now: You're alive. I'm alive... And because of your dad, _Max _is alive. And Michael and Isabel, too."

Kyle shivered. "How do they do it? How do they go on and live their lives as though...as though things are _normal_? When there are people out there that want them _dead_?"

"Now you understand why I couldn't say anything. For the longest time, they didn't trust _anyone_. And they would have gone on that way if I hadn't..." She trailed off, unable to complete the thought.

" ...if you hadn't gotten shot." He took her hand, squeezed it.

She nodded, her head against his shoulder, comfortable in the sudden and implicit support she found there.

"Yeah. And then they had no choice. Max... Max _always _trusted me. But the others... That took a lot longer..."

Kyle took a deep breath. "OK, Liz. I gotta ask this... Why did you come here today? I mean, _really_? I would've thought Wonder Boy would've come here himself – to make me swear an oath of secrecy or something. Did he send _you _to do the job?"

"No, that's not it," she said softly.

She hadn't thought of that. Did she still need to ask?

"Come to think of it, Liz, why aren't you and Max off somewhere? I saw the way he feels about you. Shit, I _felt _it..." He shivered. "If _I_ felt that way I'd never let you out of my _sight_."

"It wasn't...it wasn't his choice, Kyle." She was crying softly now. "It was mine... _I_ walked away from _him_."

She could feel him shaking his head. "I _know _you didn't just dump him..." he said in disbelief.

And suddenly, she couldn't hold back anymore.

She'd been numb since she'd left them all on that ridge. She hadn't let herself think about any of it: of what happens next or how she felt or even what she was going to do the next time she saw him.

And seeing him would cut her like a knife.

Nope. She'd focused herself on everyone else. Alex and Maria were just as numb as she was and none of them was much into conversation right now. But Kyle – now there was someone she could help – because she'd been through it before.

And now here she was needing _his_ help. In spite of everything she'd done to him – he was offering it.

He put his arms around her, rocking her gently as she cried. "It's complicated, Kyle. I..."

"You said that before." He stroked her hair. "I can handle 'complicated.'"

"It's not just complicated. There's this whole destiny thing going on... I don't have a place in it. I can't get in the way..."

"Did Max say that?" he asked, protectively. "Did he _tell_ you that you were in the way?"

She shook her head once, her cheek on his shoulder. "He wouldn't say that. He wouldn't want to hurt me. But it's _true_."

"Bullshit."

She smiled now. Laughed. "Thanks, Kyle."

"I mean it. What did Max have to say to this?"

"I... I didn't let him say anything. There was nothing to say."

Kyle laughed softly. "You're amazing, Parker. You know that? You spend all this year trying to work out how you can be with this guy, including messing with my head –" He broke off. Grinned apologetically. "Sorry, I hadda work that in there... And then when you've got what you want, you 'step aside.' Are you really that noble?"

Liz felt the tears coming again. Didn't want to let them. Stopped.

"You know what I really want, Kyle?"

"No, Liz. What's that?"

"Nothing. I want – no, I need some 'nothing' right now." She held him tighter. "Can't we just leave the talking and figuring out for later? Right now, can't we just be?"

He kissed the top of her head softly. "Sure, Liz. I think we've done enough talking for a while. And I'm not ready to do anything but 'be' at the moment, anyway."

She'd come over there to help Kyle and ended up needing help herself. Kyle who had every reason to hate her. Kyle who needed her more than he needed anyone else right now – because she alone knew what he was going through. In spite of everything. And he was the one helping her. It was almost funny.

Liz looked up, saw Sheriff Valenti watching from the kitchen doorway, and returned his soft smile of relief.

She still had pain. Kyle still had questions, but for now this was good enough...

"and when we're done  
soul searching  
as we carried the weight  
and died for the cause  
is misery  
made beautiful  
right before our eyes  
will mercy be revealed  
or blind us where we stand"

Witness, _Surfacing_, Sarah McLachlan

fini


	2. Chapter 2: Atmosphere

Atmosphere

**State of Grace: Atmosphere**

by Irene Shafer

**Title:** State of Grace

**Chapter:** Atmosphere  
**Author:** ibshafer

**Genre: **Roswell

**Pairing:** Max, Isabel (but _not _Max/Isabel)

**Rating: **PG

**Disclaimer:** the usual; I bow down to the "great" and powerful Katim's and company, by whose good graces I mangle these characters...  
**Summary:** Post-season 1 fallout; Isabel tries to help Max

"_If I could make it rain today_

_And wash away this sunny day_

_Down to the gutter, _

_I would_

_Just to get a change of pace_

_Things are getting worse but I feel a lot better_

_And that's all that really matters to me._

_We've waited so long_

_For someone to take us back home_

_It just takes so long_

_And meanwhile the days _

_Go drifting away_

_And some of us sink like a stone_

_Waiting for the mothers to come."_

_ -- _Amy Hit the Atmosphere, _This Desert Life, _Counting Crows

He didn't hear her come into the room. The music from the CD player effectively drowned out all other sound.

Which she knew was exactly what he was going for.

The music _was_ pretty...atmospheric. Melancholic. The perfect soundtrack for misery. Max's favorite.

"You're gonna wear that track out, you know," she said, softly, when she was within a few feet of him.

He barely stirred, didn't even flinch at the sound of her voice, like he'd known she was there all along –and just didn't care.

It chilled her to the bone.

She put her arms around his neck and hugged him from behind.

"Isabel," he whispered.

She held him for a moment longer, felt him lean back into her embrace then reach up and put a hand on her arm.

"_Izzy,"_ he said, voice straining. "Gotta _breath_..."

"Sorry," she apologized, taking a seat on the end of the bed. On the tape deck in front of him, Adam Duritz continued his soulful song.

She studied her brother for a moment, suddenly unsure of what to say.

Big changes in all their lives. Big, big, _biiiiig_ changes... A destiny, with a capital "D". A...a fiancé who, all her life, had been her 'brother.' An enemy potentially worse than Pierce. One that might at this very moment be heading their way. She hadn't really started to process it all yet. Didn't know how. She knew her brother, though. Knew what he was going through. And why.

"Trying to work it all out, aren't you?" she asked, softly.

Max was chewing his lip, thoughtful. His voice, when he finally spoke, was quiet and strained. Like he'd been clenching his jaw for a while. Or holding his breath. "I'm not sure what we need to be doing right now, you know? How do we get ready for this?"

She shook her head. "That's _not _what I meant, Max." And when he looked at her, she could see that the question had really thrown him. The raw pain she suddenly saw there was so familiar, it cut straight to her belly. Hit her hard. Threatened to send her back into the tears she'd finally managed to pull herself from. Back into _her_ pain. And that wasn't why she was here. Not this time.

Max looked away, as though he knew what she was going to say – and didn't want to hear it. "Max, I know what you're really thinking about. _Who_."

"Iz... don't, _please_?"

"I know you, Max. You don't let something go until you've fixed it and made it work the way you want it to. This is no different. Just a little harder, that's all..." His face was set like stone again. Resigned. It scared her. If _he_ couldn't see it, it wouldn't work for _any _of them. And she was no sooner ready to let go of Alex than she knew _he_ was to let go of Liz...

"She was just trying to give you some space to think things through, that's all," she said softly, but he was shaking his head by the time she'd finished speaking.

"That's not what she was doing, Isabel." He paused. "She was _giving up_."

"Stepping aside isn't the same thing as giving up and you know it."

"What difference does it make," he asked, that stone-face starting to crack. "What if she's right? What if none of this is about what _we_ want. What if it shouldn't be?"

"Are you saying our fighting for our homeworld won't _work_ if you and Tess don't..." but she couldn't even finish it. "_That _doesn't make us who we are or who we will be. And it doesn't change what we can

do...for _them_."

"Yeah, but what if what we have to do puts the people we love in the kind of danger we can't fix? What if knowing us gets them..."

Isabel's laugh was short and bitter. "It's a little too late for that, Max..." She was surprised he hadn't thought of this himself. Then again, she was sure that he had.

He looked up at her. "No, this is different. We're talking two different threats here, Isabel. Pierce...won't be a problem anymore. But who knowswhat _else_ is on the way."

"Because we used the orbs?"

He nodded. "Because we used the orbs." Max rose from his seat and went to the open window. There was a cool breeze tonight, moving the curtains, filling the room, but still there was sweat on his brow. "Who knows who or _what _we've alerted. Or how much time we have."

She thought about this a moment, chose not to follow the train of thought. For the time being.

"OK, but that's not why Liz left, Max."

His voice was suddenly small. _"I know that."_

"She left because she thinks you can't fulfill your destiny unless you honor the...the previous...you's obligation to _Tess_..."

Max shook his head. "Which is ridiculous, really." He started to laugh, then caught himself. "One has nothing to do with the other. No matter what she..." He broke off, suddenly uncomfortable with what he was about to say. "...no matter what _she_ said." He looked up, caught her eye. "I'm sorry, Iz, I know how much seeing her meant to you..."

She nodded. "_Everything_. Not that I don't love Mom. Not that I don't still want to tell her everything. Everyday..."

"I know. I know you do. Seeing…her meant a lot to me, too." He still couldn't call the woman his mother. He continued with a soft smile. Sad. "Maybe there's a lot I don't know." Now he did laugh. "Strike that. I _know _there's a lot I don't know. About what we can do. About what we're supposed to do. About what we _need _to do. But I don't see how who my..." His voice broke. "I don't see how who my _heart _belongs to affects that."

She caught his eye. Smiled. Smiled wider when he returned it.

"Liz..." he began softly. "Liz said that we choose our own destinies."

"_You_ said that." She corrected him.

He nodded. "And she reminded me of it just yesterday. When we were hiding in that van."

"It's still true, isn't it?" she asked, hopefully. "I mean, I'll do _whatever's_ needed. I just don't see why... why _that's_ what's needed, you know?" She shivered, remembering the dreams with Michael out in the desert, then the sweet expression on Alex's face when he pledged he'd be there for her even though she thought she was pregnant with Michael's baby. "Can't we? Have it all, I mean? Can't we work it out?"

"I don't know, Iz." Max said, back at the window again. "I just don't know."

She came up behind him and hooked her chin over his shoulder, her face beside his face, like she'd done when they were kids, so she could look where he was looking. Gently, she circled her arms around him.

They stood in silence for a moment, breathing in the night air and searching the clear black sky.

When he spoke again, his voice was quiet, but resigned. "I do know one thing, though."

"What's that, Max?"

"I'm going to try." He reached up and squeezed her hand. "_I'm going to try._"

fini


	3. Chapter 3: Bent Michael

Maria – post Destiny

**State of Grace: Bent (Michael)**

ibshafer

**Title:** State of Grace

**Chapter:** Bent (Michael)  
**Author:** ibshafer

**Genre: **Roswell

**Pairing:** Michael/Maria

**Rating: **PG (for mild profanity)

**Disclaimer:** the usual; I bow down to the "great" and powerful Katim's and company, by whose good graces I mangle these characters...  
**Summary:** Post-season 1 fallout; Michael tries to convince himself that Maria is better off without him

"If I fall along the way  
pick me up and dust me off.  
and if I get too tired to make it  
be my breath so I can walk

If I need some other love  
give me more than I can stand  
and when my smile gets old and faded  
wait around I'll smile again

shouldn't be so complicated  
just hold me and then  
just hold me again"  
-- Bent, Mad Season, Matchbox Twenty

'_Maybe because I love you too much. Goodbye.' _

For once, would you please just listen to me?

Trust me on this one, OK? I've got a good view of what's going on on the inside of my head. I know what I'm talking about and you do not want to know what's happening in here. I mean it.

Nobody, Maria, nobody can get to me like you do. That can be a. . . a good thing.

I'm thinking right now that it can also be a bad thing. . . And I don't want it to be.

OK?

After all these years of thinking I was this alien misfit, that I couldn't do anything, I finally find out that I can. 'Cept it isn't something all warm and fuzzy like healing bullet wounds or tap-dancing through people's dreams. No, when I finally find out what my Special Talent is it turns out that I kill people.

Great.

Just what I need. . .

Like I don't have a hard enough time fitting in. . .

I'm thinking that this . . .this whatever it is, is something I can't control. Maybe I'll learn how.

But what if I don't?

Do you get it, Maria? I killed a man today. And not the kind of 'killed' that Max and Isabel can fix. Dead 'killed'.

What if one day you piss me off really good. Like giving me a hard time about, I dunno, something stupid like my hair, and I lose it. I'm not saying I'm gonna, but what if I do? And 'poof'! Maria Gets a Big Charge. Film at 11.

Do you want that?

I sure as hell don't.

Nobody. I mean, nobody has ever cared for me the way you do. Max and Izzy? They're my family. Sometimes, I know, they've got that 'we're stuck with him, so we love him' thing going on, and that's cool. I know I can be a pain in the ass sometimes.

But, you?

You chose to love me.

Nobody's ever done that before.

Kind of a glutton for punishement, aren't you?

Yeah, yeah, I know. You'd be smacking me about now and giving me one of those frosty looks, but, see. . . how can I do this to you, how can I take a chance that I could do this do you, when you're the first person on earth who loved me 'cause they wanted to?

Shit, who loved me in spite of me. . .

I don't know what's gonna happen to us, to me, over the next few months, but three days on the run from Pierce and I'm burning up car engines with my freaking hand and sending government agents flying so hard across the room they break their necks. I'm guessing we're not in for a walk in the park, you know?

Not exactly time for Good Michael. . .

I don't know if there even is a Good Michael, anymore.

If it weren't for what Max and Izzy's mom said in the cave, I'd be planning to just cut out on my own. Get away from people. I'm too dangerous, Maria. I can't trust myself around anyone. Who knows what I could do?

But the stuff we found out today. It's big, Maria. I want to talk to you about it so bad, 'cause it's kind of scary shit and you have this way of taking the teeth out of things like that, but. . . but I can't. I know you're sitting at home, or maybe with Liz – I hope you're with Liz, I know she's feeling like shit right now, too – and you're probably throwing darts at a picture of me. Or maybe you've got a little Michael voodoo doll with a pin stuck in its heart.

In fact, I know you do, 'cause I've got this pain. . .

Look, Maria. This is how it has to be. You'll get over me. Shouldn't take you that long. Just think of all the crap I've put you through and add this last one to the top of the list.

And whether you believe it or not, I do love you.

Sorry I waited until today to say it.

I just couldn't let anything happen to you.

Maybe that's bent, but it's the truth.

I'm alone and that's how it's got to be.

fini


	4. Chapter 4: Bent Maria

Maria – post Destiny

**State of Grace: Bent (Maria)**

by Irene Shafer

**Title:** State of Grace

**Chapter:** Bent (Maria)  
**Author:** ibshafer

**Genre: **Roswell

**Pairing:** Michael/Maria

**Rating: **PG (for mild profanity)

**Disclaimer:** the usual; I bow down to the "great" and powerful Katim's and company, by whose good graces I mangle these characters...  
**Summary:** Maria is the kind of girl that doesn't take 'no' for an answer. Or _"I love you, too much. Goodbye…"_

"_If I couldn't sleep could you sleep  
could you paint me better off  
could you sympathize with my needs  
I know you think I need a lot_

I started out clean but I'm jaded  
just phoning it in  
just breaking the skin

shouldn't be so complicated  
just touch me and then  
just touch me again"

_-- _Bent_, Mad Season_, Matchbox Twenty

'It's never been safe. What difference does it make now?'

So, I'm a high maintenance kind of girl. I don't try to be. I just am. I'm worth it, though, you know. No lie.

And you, my fine friend, are a high maintenance kind of guy.

A match made in heaven? Maybe Hell should take a little credit, too…

I'm definitely in one of them right now, though, because you slay me. Out cold. Down for the count. One foot in the. Dead.

'Kay, I know you're going through a lot. I get that, you know? But that's what I'm here for, babe. To help with shit like that.

I know you're not used to people caring what happens to you, at least, people other than Max and Isabel, but I thought we'd covered all that ground months ago.

Now you're doing the 'for my own good', bullcrap and telling me you love me in the same stupid breath you're saying I should just stay away from you.

What kind of shit is that, Michael?

Maybe you're just trying to embrace your alien-hood. I get that.

But there's this, like, pathetic little part of me, the part that's just been waiting for you to find some reason to run, that thinks you pulled that line on me so you could be free to be with Isabel. Isabel, your sister. Isabel, your fiancé-from-another-planet. . .

I don't get the bit about me not being safe, though. I have never, in my whole, miserable life, felt safer with any other person. Man, woman or child. You're it, guy. You be the One.

And remember me? I'm the one that makes it all all right. I'm like Living Valium.

I am your Grief Relief.

So telling me something like that, I just don't buy it. I also don't buy that you want to be with Isabel. That way. I've seen you two together. You're as sister/brotherly as she and Max are. Kind of icky, don't'cha think?

I went over to Liz's today to find out what happened out there and man, she's in such a bad way right now that I can't even get her to talk to me, which for Lizzie, is really saying a lot. She's not even upset, which is scary, she just had this look on her face like her life was over... I tried to stay with her, but she shooed me out, saying she had to take a nap or something.

No way is that girl gonna be sleeping anytime soon…

But her leaving Max to his destiny, to Tess, that's just as bent as you walking out on me because you 'love me too much'...

What's with all this self-sacrifice, people?! Am I the only one here without a noble bone in her body?

I want what I want because I deserve it. And I'll make it work because the things I deserve are worth it.

Why does it have to be this complicated, Michael? It shouldn't be. You. Me. Whatever comes comes. No big.

And if you think I'm gonna sit around wasting time trying to get over you, you can forget that, mister.

I give you one day, then I'm on you like white on rice.

Me leaving you alone? Guess again. . .

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